Boring

Sitting in a meeting, waiting for the last guy to come.

Now we're cooking with cans!

More cooking updates:

This weekend was 38 jars of sand hill plum jam. That's a supremely tart version of the plum that is about the diameter of a quarter. We got them from my wife's family's house, and we got like 15 pounds of them. I wasn't sure how many that would make, but I figured it would be around 40. If you didn't know, jam takes a LOT of sugar. I went through about 13 pounds of sugar. Whoa. However, the whole process hardly took any time at all. Started sometime after 10 and was done by 1 30. I've already tried some, and yes, it is delicious. I did 2 batches of the regular recipe (from SureJell), 1 batch of low sugar, and 1 batch of freezer jam (although I used a sugar free pectin box.

What else did we cook this weekend? Not a lot (made a lot of pesto and froze it). The wife made a chicken and rice casserole.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was good times in the kitchen. I made a large pizza for dinner (Turkey pepperoni & garden tomatoes) and I made two more pizza crusts so when I'm on the road the fam will be able to prepare something quickly. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that feta, basil, and oregano (with some olive oil) is the greatest topping possible on an italian style pizza. That combination is just amazing.

I also got 36 eggs from a friend who has chickens. Not sure what I'm going to do with all of them (angel food and lemon curd will probably be involved at some point). I made french toast yesterday, and I pickled hard-boiled eggs last night. The pickled eggs are in a spicy vinegar (which smelled terrible to make actually). I thought if they taste ok, I might use them in a spicy chicken salad recipe.

I also pickled probably the last of the fresh cucumbers from the farmer's market last night. Although the dill pickles have been in a hit in the house (wife and kid seem to like them), bread and butter's have just been even more popular. Although I've got about 8 jars of zucchini bread and butters, I'm down to two or so jars of cucumber bread and butters. After discussing other options with the wife (Thai pickles, yellow pickles, etc), we decided to go with the bread and butters. They are probably the tastiest pickles I've ever made (the recipe, not this particular batch). However, I have a hard time taking credit. The cucumbers themselves look so incredibly delicious. After they've been soaking in salt for a few hours the smell is amazing. In fact, after I drained them, all three of us huddled around the collander to smell the cucumbers, and the boy couldn't resist! He popped one in his mouth and loved it!

I say he couldn't resist. But in reality, he doesn't even know what that means.